Dad spends a night in the mancave: Thor and X-Men First Class

We had two bits of good news recently.   Mommy Mojo gave birth to More Mojo, which allowed us to spend three nights on the sofa watching mancave movies.  A wife in the hospital recovering from birth can be a blessing if you choose your movies carefully. We chose Thor and X-Men First Class, did we choose wisely?

Thor, the God of Thunder, behaves immaturely, thus angering his king (and father) who subsequently banishes him to Earth.  Once on Earth Thor struggles to regain his powers and do the right thing, but eventually becomes a great protector to Earth and rejoins his homeland.

In the mancave you break things down to its simplest form.  Thor is an entertaining comic book movie.  If you’re schooled in fanboy culture at all, then Thor will leave you with the feeling that you’ve been ripped off.  The difference between Iron Man and Iron Man 2 was that the second one felt forced, like it existed only to bridge the upcoming Avengers movie.

Fanboys are already pumped about The Avengers and don’t need stand alone movies for each Avenger.  Thor was good and entertaining, but only if you classified it as a ‘comic book movie’.  License to Kill was a great movie and not just a James Bond movie.  However, Moonraker was an OK James Bond movie and not really a good movie. Thor was OK as a comic book movie and somewhat entertaining as a movie.

X-Men First Class seems like a retread with the only difference being that this one is set in the 60’s.  Sure enough the first two minutes are virtually scene for scene from the first X-Men movie.   Here’s a young Magneto bending the gates to a concentration camp, he gets knocked unconscious and …hey is that Kevin Bacon dressed up as an old man?

What is Professor X doing walking around and hitting on women?  Did you catch that cameo by Wolverine?  X-Men First Class only seems like a retread; in reality it’s a fresh reboot that serves the franchise much better than the first entry in the X-Men movie series.

The movie is well paced and ironically, feels as much like a James Bond film as an X-Men movie.  There are multiple locations, great villains and just enough story to be meaty, but then the action resumes and continues the story.  It brightens up some heroes, brings in new ones and explains bits and pieces of the X-Men universe that weren’t touched on in the previous movies.

You don’t need to be a fanboy or comic book movie person to enjoy X-Men First Class.  The story is refreshing, original and will leave you entertained even if you don’t know X about your superheroes.  X-Men First Class is a great movie and great comic book movie.  Moonraker would be proud and Thor is jealous.

In the box office world though, Thor kicked X-Men First Class’ butt.  That is a pity, because the later is easily a much better movie.  Thor benefitted from being released first is a busy summer season of comic book movies.  The story for X-Men First Class may have put some people off due to its being set in the 60’s.   It’s a character driven; superhero movie that happens to take place in the 60’s- nowhere near Don Draper and unfortunately doesn’t star Christina Hendricks.

In the end if you can only rent one comic book movie for your mancave this month make it X-Men First Class.  If you can rent two then watch both of them.

Dad spends a night in the mancave is a series about what guys do when women aren’t around to judge them for what they watch on television.  It’s those potentially bad movies, questionable action films or something starring Bruce Campbell that really can be enjoyable through the lens of a guy.  We may reveal plot points to the movies that are discussed, so if you’re looking for ‘reviews’ then head on over to a site that will talk about political movies starring George Clooney cause it isn’t here.